Motivational conflicts in consumer behavior

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Source: Phil Date/Shutterstock.

A s Basil scans the menu at the trendy health-food restaurant Paula has dragged him to, he reflects on what a man will give up for love. Now that Paula has become a die-hard vegan, she’s slowly but surely working on him

to forsake those juicy steaks and burgers for healthier fare. He

can’t even hide from tofu and other delights at school; the din-

ing facility in his dorm just started to offer “veggie” alternatives

to its usual assortment of greasy “mystery meats” and other

delicacies he loves.

Paula is totally into it; she claims that eating this way not

only cuts out unwanted fat but also is good for the environment.

Just his luck to fall head-over-heels for a “tree-hugger.” As Basil

gamely tries to decide between the stuffed artichokes with red

pepper vinaigrette and the grilled marinated zucchini, fantasies

of a sizzling 14-ounce T-bone dance before his eyes.

The Motivation Process: Why Ask Why? Paula certainly is not alone in her belief that eating green is good for the body, the soul, and the planet. According to a 2014 Harris Interactive study, approximately 5 percent of U.S. Americans are

vegetarian (close to 16 million people) and about half of these vegetarians are vegan. Indeed the number of vegans in the United States has doubled since 2009.

Vegetarianism refers only to a diet that excludes meat (some animal products that do not involve the death of an animal, such as milk, cheese, and butter, may be included). Veganism, in contrast, links to a set of ethical beliefs about use of and cruelty to animals. In addition

5-1 Products can satisfy a range of consumer needs.

5-2 Consumers experience different kinds of motivational conflicts that can impact their purchase decisions.

5-3 Consumers experience a range of affective responses to products and marketing messages.

5-4 The way we evaluate and choose a product depends on our degree of involvement with the product, the marketing message, or the purchase situation.

When you finish reading this chapter you will understand why:

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ObjecTive 5-1 Products can satisfy a range of consumer needs.

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to objecting to hunting or fishing, adherents protest cruel animal training; object to the degrading use of animals in circuses, zoos, rodeos, and races; and also oppose the testing of drugs and cosmetics on animals.1

The forces that drive people to buy and use products are generally straightforward— for example, when a person chooses what to have for lunch. As hard-core vegans dem- onstrate, however, even the basic food products we consume also relate to wide-ranging beliefs regarding what we think is appropriate or desirable. In some cases, these emotional responses create a deep commitment to the product. Sometimes people are not even fully aware of the forces that drive them toward some products and away from others.

To understand motivation is to understand why consumers do what they do. Why do some people choose to bungee-jump off a bridge or compete on reality shows, whereas oth- ers spend their leisure time playing chess or gardening? Whether it is to quench a thirst, kill boredom, or attain some deep spiritual experience, we do everything for a reason, even if we can’t articulate what that reason is. We teach marketing students from Day 1 that the goal of marketing is to satisfy consumers’ needs. However, this insight is useless unless we can discover what those needs are and why they exist. A beer commercial once asked, “Why ask why?” In this chapter, we’ll find out.

Motivation refers to the processes that lead people to behave as they do. It occurs when a need is aroused that the consumer wishes to satisfy. The need creates a state of tension that drives the consumer to attempt to reduce or eliminate it. This need may be utilitarian (i.e., a desire to achieve some functional or practical benefit, as when a person loads up on green vegetables for nutritional reasons) or it may be hedonic (i.e., an experien- tial need, involving emotional responses or fantasies as when a person feels “righteous” by eating kale). The desired end state is the consumer’s goal. Marketers try to create products and services to provide the desired benefits and help the consumer to reduce this tension.

One question that keeps some consumer researchers up at night is whether a per- son even needs to be aware of a motivation to achieve a goal. The evidence suggests that motives can lurk beneath the surface, and cues in the environment can activate a goal even when we don’t know it: Marketers are just beginning to explore the effects of incidental brand exposure:

●● People who were exposed to a sign in a room of the brand name “Apple” provided responses on an unrelated task that were more unique compared to those who saw a sign with the IBM brand name.2

●● College students who used a “cute” ice cream scoop to help themselves to ice cream took a larger amount than those who used a plain scoop; the researchers explained that the whimsical object drove them to be more self-indulgent even though they weren’t aware of this effect.3

●● Some students scored higher on difficult Graduate Records Examination questions when they took the test using a Massachusetts Institute of Technology pen and deliv- ered a better athletic performance when they drank water from a Gatorade cup during strenuous exercise.4

Motivational Strength Whether the need is utilitarian or hedonic, the magnitude of the tension it creates deter- mines the urgency the consumer feels to reduce it. We call this degree of arousal a drive.

Drive Theory Drive theory focuses on biological needs that produce unpleasant states of arousal (e.g., your stomach grumbles during a morning class). The arousal this tension causes moti- vates us to reduce it and return to a balanced state called homeostasis. Some research- ers believe that this need to reduce arousal is a basic mechanism that governs much of our behavior. Indeed there is research evidence for the effectiveness of so-called retail therapy; apparently the act of shopping restores a sense of personal control over one’s environment and as a result can alleviate feelings of sadness.5 Go for it!

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If a behavior reduces the drive, we naturally tend to repeat it. Your motivation to leave class early to grab a snack would be greater if you hadn’t eaten in 24 hours than if you had eaten only two hours earlier. If you did sneak out and got indigestion afterward, say, from wolfing down a package of Twinkies, you would be less likely to repeat this behavior the next time you want a snack. One’s degree of motivation, then, depends on the distance between one’s present state and the goal.

Drive theory runs into difficulties when it tries to explain some facets of human behavior that run counter to its predictions. People often do things that increase a drive state rather than decrease it. For example, we may delay gratification. If you know you are going out for a lavish dinner, you might decide to forego a snack earlier in the day even though you are hungry at that time.

expectancy Theory Most current explanations of motivation focus on cognitive factors rather than biological ones to understand what motivates behavior. Expectancy theory suggests that expecta- tions of achieving desirable outcomes—positive incentives—rather than being pushed from within motivate our behavior. We choose one product over another because we expect this choice to have more positive consequences for us. Thus, we use the term drive here loosely to refer to both physical and cognitive processes.

Motivational Direction Motives have direction as well as strength. They are goal-oriented in that they drive us to satisfy a specific need. We can reach most goals by a number of routes, and the objective of a company is to convince consumers that the alternative it offers provides the best chance to attain the goal. For example, a consumer who decides that she needs a pair of jeans to help her reach her goal of being admired by others can choose among Levi’s, Wranglers, True Religion, Diesel, 7 for All Mankind, and many other alternatives, each of which promises to deliver certain benefits.

needs versus Wants As we saw in Chapter 1, a need reflects a basic goal such as keeping yourself nourished or protected from the elements. In contrast a want is a specific pathway to achieving this objective that depends a lot on our unique personalities, cultural upbringing, and our observations about how others we know satisfy the same need. One person’s cool

A want (like fast food) is a specific way to satisfy a need (like hunger). Source: Dennis Tarnay, Jr./Alamy.

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downtown loft is another’s suburban McMansion. In some cases, we don’t even know we have a “want” until we can no longer have it: A lot of people didn’t know they wanted foie gras ice cream sandwiches until California made them illegal. California banned foie gras in 2012, arguing that it was cruel to force-feed a duck to fatten its liver. Demand for delica- cies made with the expensive and unobtainable dish spiked. A federal court overturned the ban in 2015, much to the relief of fatty liver connoisseurs.6

When we focus on a utilitarian need, we emphasize the objective, tangible attributes of products, such as miles per gallon in a car; the amount of fat, calories, and protein in a cheeseburger; or the durability of a pair of blue jeans. Hedonic needs are subjective and experiential; here we might look to a product to meet our needs for excitement, self-confi- dence, or fantasy—perhaps to escape the mundane or routine aspects of life.7 Many items satisfy our hedonic needs (there’s even a popular resort called Hedonism). Luxury brands in particular thrive when they offer the promise of pleasure to the user—how badly do you “need” that Armani suit or Coach bag?8

Of course, we can also be motivated to purchase a product because it provides both types of benefits. For example, a woman (perhaps a politically incorrect one) might buy a mink coat because of the luxurious image it portrays and because it also happens to keep her warm through the long, cold winter. Indeed, recent research on novel consumption experiences indicates that even when we choose to do unusual things (like eating bacon ice cream or staying in a freezing ice hotel), we may do so because we have what the authors term a productivity orientation. This refers to a continual striving to use time constructively: Trying new things is a way to check them off our “bucket list” of experi- ences we want to achieve before we move on to others.9

Motivational conflicts A goal has valence, which means that it can be positive or nega- tive. We direct our behavior toward goals we value positively; we are motivated to approach the goal and to seek out products that will help us to reach it. However, as we saw in Chapter 4’s discus- sion of negative reinforcement, sometimes we’re also motivated to avoid a negative outcome rather than achieve a positive outcome. We structure purchases or consumption activities to reduce the

chances that we will experience a nasty result. For example, many consumers work hard to avoid rejection by their peers (an avoidance goal). They stay away from products that

For some, jumping out of an airplane is a valuable hedonic experience. Source: Kovalenko Inna.

ObjecTive 5-2 Consumers experience different kinds of motivational conflicts that can impact their purchase decisions.

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they associate with social disapproval. Products such as deodorants and mouthwash fre- quently rely on consumers’ negative motivation when ads depict the onerous social conse- quences of underarm odor or bad breath.

Because a purchase decision can involve more than one source of motivation, con- sumers often find themselves in situations in which different motives, both positive and negative, conflict with one another.10 Marketers attempt to satisfy consumers’ needs by providing possible solutions to these dilemmas. As Figure 5.1 shows, there are three gen- eral types of conflicts we should understand.

Approach–Approach conflict A person has an approach–approach conflict when he or she must choose between two desirable alternatives. A student might be torn between going home for the holidays and going on a skiing trip with friends. Or, he or she might have to choose between two CDs to download (assuming that he or she is going to pay for one of them!). The theory of cog- nitive dissonance is based on the premise that people have a need for order and consis- tency in their lives and that a state of dissonance (tension) exists when beliefs or behaviors conflict with one another. We resolve the conflict that arises when we choose between two alternatives through a process of cognitive dissonance reduction, where we look for a way to reduce this inconsistency (or dissonance) and thus eliminate unpleasant tension.

Postdecision dissonance occurs when a consumer must choose between two products, both of which possess good and bad qualities. When he or she chooses one product and not the other, the person gets the bad qualities of the product he or she buys and loses out on the good qualities of the one he or she didn’t buy. This loss creates an unpleasant, dis- sonant state that he wants to reduce. We tend to convince ourselves, after the fact, that the choice we made was the smart one as we find additional reasons to support the alterna- tive we did choose—perhaps when we discover flaws with the option we did not choose (sometimes we call this rationalization). A marketer can bundle several benefits together to resolve an approach–approach conflict. For example, Miller Lite’s claim that it is “less fill- ing” and “tastes great” allows the drinker to “have his beer and drink it too.”

Approach-Avoidance conflict Many of the products and services we desire have negative consequences attached to them as well as positive ones. We may feel guilty or ostentatious when we buy a luxury product such as a fur coat or we might feel like gluttons when we crave a tempting package of Twinkies. An approach–avoidance conflict occurs when we desire a goal but wish to avoid it at the same time.

Some solutions to these conflicts include the proliferation of fake furs, which elimi- nate guilt about harming animals to make a fashion statement, and the success of diet programs like Weight Watchers that promise good food without the calories.11 Many

Figure 5.1 TyPes OF MOTivATiONAl CONFliCT

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marketers try to help consumers overcome guilt by convincing them that they deserve these luxuries. As the model for L’Oréal cosmetics exclaims, “Because I’m worth it!”

Avoidance-Avoidance conflict Sometimes we find ourselves caught “between a rock and a hard place.” We may face a choice with two undesirable alternatives: for instance, the option of either spending more money on an old car or buying a new one. Don’t you hate when that happens? Marketers frequently address an avoidance–avoidance conflict with messages that stress the unforeseen benefits of choosing one option (e.g., when they emphasize special credit plans to ease the pain of car payments).

how We classify consumer needs Numerous psychologists have tried to define a universal inventory of needs they could trace systematically to explain virtually all behavior.

Murray’s Psychogenic needs One such inventory that the psychologist Henry Murray developed delineates a set of 20 psychogenic needs that (sometimes in combination) result in specific behaviors. These needs include such dimensions as autonomy (being independent), defendance (defending the self against criticism), and even play (engaging in pleasurable activities).12

Murray’s framework is the basis for a number of personality tests that modern-day psychologists use, such as the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). In the TAT, the analyst shows test subjects four to six ambiguous pictures and asks them to write answers to four direct questions about the pictures:

1 What is happening? 2 What led up to this situation? 3 What is being thought? 4 What will happen?

The theory behind the test is that people will freely project their own subconscious needs onto the neutral stimulus. By getting responses to the pictures, the analyst really gets at the person’s true needs for achievement or affiliation or whatever other need may be dominant. Murray believed that everyone has the same basic set of needs but that indi- viduals differ in their priority rankings of these needs.13

Specific needs and buying behavior Other motivational approaches have focused on specific needs and their ramifications for behavior. For example, individuals with a high need for achievement strongly value personal accomplishment.14 They place a premium on products and services that signify success because these consumption items provide feedback about the realization of their goals. These consumers are good prospects for products that provide evidence of their achieve- ment. One study of working women found that those who were high in achievement moti- vation were more likely to choose clothing they considered businesslike and less likely to be interested in apparel that accentuated their femininity.15 Some other important needs that are relevant to consumer behavior include:

●● Need for affiliation (to be in the company of other people):16 The need for affiliation is relevant to products and services for people in groups, such as participating in team sports, frequenting bars, and hanging out at shopping malls.

●● Need for power (to control one’s environment):17 Many products and services allow us to feel that we have mastery over our surroundings. These products range from “hopped-up” muscle cars and loud boom boxes (oversized portable radios that impose one’s musical tastes on others) to luxury resorts that promise to respond to every whim of their pampered guests.

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●● Need for uniqueness (to assert one’s individual identity):18 Products satisfy the need for uniqueness when they pledge to bring out our distinctive qualities. For example, Cachet perfume claims to be “as individual as you are.”

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs The psychologist Abraham Maslow originally developed his influential Hierarchy of Needs to understand personal growth and how people attain spiritual “peak experiences.” Marketers later adapted his work to understand consumer motivations.19 Maslow’s hierarchi- cal structure implies that the order of development is fixed—that is, we must attain a certain level before we activate a need for the next, higher one. Marketers embraced this perspective because it (indirectly) specifies certain types of product benefits people might look for, depend- ing on their stage of mental or spiritual development or on their economic situation.20

Figure 5.2 presents this model. At each level, the person seeks different kinds of prod- uct benefits. Ideally, an individual progresses up the hierarchy until his or her dominant motivation is a focus on “ultimate” goals, such as justice and beauty. Unfortunately, this state is difficult to achieve (at least on a regular basis); most of us have to be satisfied with occasional glimpses, or peak experiences. One study of men aged 49 to 60 found that these respondents engaged in three types of activities to attain self-fulfillment: (1) sport and physical activity, (2) community and charity, and (3) building and renovating. Regardless of whether these activities were related to their professional work, these so-called magnetic points gradually took the place of those that were not as fulfilling.21

Marketers’ applications of this hierarchy have been somewhat simplistic, especially because the same product or activity can gratify different needs. For example, one study found that gardening could satisfy needs at every level of the hierarchy:22

●● Physiological—“I like to work in the soil.” ●● Safety—“I feel safe in the garden.” ●● Social—“I can share my produce with others.” ●● Esteem—“I can create something of beauty.” ●● Self-actualization—“My garden gives me a sense of peace.”

Another problem with taking Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs too literally is that it is culture-bound; its assumptions may apply only to Western culture. People in other

safety is a lower-level need in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Source: Courtesy of Volvo do Brasil.

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SELF- ACTUALIZATION Self-Ful�llment,

Enriching Experiences

EGO NEEDS Prestige, Status, Accomplishment

BELONGINGNESS Love, Friendship,

Acceptance by Others

SAFETY Security, Shelter, Protection

PHYSIOLOGICAL Water, Sleep, Food

UPPER-LEVEL NEEDS

LOWER-LEVEL NEEDS

Relevant Products

Hobbies, travel, education

Cars, furniture, credit cards, stores, country clubs, liquors

Clothing, grooming products, clubs, drinks

Insurance, alarm systems, retirement, investments

Medicines, staple items, generics

Example

U.S. Army—‘‘Be all you can be.’’

Royal Salute Scotch—‘‘What the rich give the wealthy.’’

Pepsi—‘‘You’re in the Pepsi generation.’’

Allstate Insurance—‘‘You’re in good hands with Allstate.’’

Quaker Oat Bran—‘‘It’s the right thing to do.’’

Figure 5.2 MAslOw’s HierArCHy OF Needs

cultures (or, for that matter, even some in Western cultures) may question the order of the levels it specifies. A religious person who has taken a vow of celibacy would not necessarily agree that physiological needs must be satisfied before self-fulfillment can occur.

Similarly, many Asian cultures value the welfare of the group (belongingness needs) more highly than needs of the individual (esteem needs). The point is that this hierarchy, although marketers widely apply it, is helpful primarily because it reminds us that con- sumers may have different need priorities in different consumption situations and at dif- ferent stages in their lives—not because it exactly specifies a consumer’s progression up the ladder of needs.

A basic activity like gardening can satisfy people at different levels depending upon their motivation to engage in it. Source: Todd Arena/123RF.

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Affect Zumba began in the 1990s as a Colombian dance fitness program, but today it’s an international sensation. Every week about 14 mil- lion people in more than 150 countries take classes that combine elements of dance moves adapted from various sources such as hip-hop, salsa, merengue, mambo, belly dancing and Bollywood,

with some squats and lunges thrown in for good measure. The Zumba company started as an infomercial producer, but the regimen was popularized when the CEO’s brother, an out- of-work advertising executive, had a revelation and convinced him to change focus. The brother recalls that he saw a movie billboard with some exuberant dancers: “Immediately, I called my brother and said, ‘You’re selling the wrong thing. You’re selling fitness when you should be selling this emotion.’ I wanted to turn Zumba into a brand where people felt that kind of free and electrifying joy.” The two invented the tagline, “Ditch the workout; join the party!” The rest is history.23

We may not all be in good enough shape to endure a Zumba workout, but many of our decisions are driven by our emotional responses to products. Social scientists refer to these raw reactions as affect. That explains why so many marketing activities and messages focus on altering our moods or linking their products to an affective response, although different types of emotional arousal may be more effective in some contexts than others.24 These connections make sense to anyone who has ever teared up during a sappy TV commercial or written an angry letter after getting shabby treatment at a hotel.

Types of Affective responses Affect describes the experience of emotionally laden states, but the nature of these expe- riences ranges from evaluations, to moods, to full-blown emotions. Evaluations are valenced (i.e., positive or negative) reactions to events and objects that are not accompa- nied by high levels of physiological arousal. For example, when a consumers evaluates a movie as being positive or negative, this usually involves some degree of affect accom- panied by low levels of arousal (possible exceptions such as Fifty Shades of Gray notwith- standing!). Moods involve temporary positive or negative affective states accompanied by moderate levels of arousal. Moods tends to be diffuse and not necessarily linked to a particular event (e.g. you might have just “woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning”). Emotions such as happiness, anger, and fear tend to be more intense and often relate to a specific triggering event such as receiving an awesome gift.25

Marketers find many uses for affective states. They often try to link a product or ser- vice with a positive mood or emotion (just think of a sappy Hallmark greeting card). Of

Zumba exercise routines focus on providing an emotional experience. Source: Photo by Danny Martindale/WireImage/ Getty Images.

ObjecTive 5-3 Consumers experience a range of affective responses to products and marketing messages.

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course a variety of products from alcohol to chocolate are consumed at least partly for their ability to enhance mood. Numerous companies evaluate the emotional impact of their ads; some such as Unilever and Coca-Cola use sophisticated technology that inter- prets how viewers react to ads by their facial expressions.26

On other occasions marketing communications may deliberately evoke negative affect, such as regret if you forget to play the lottery. Perhaps a more productive way to harness the power of negative affect is to expose the consumer to a distressing image and then provide a way to improve it. For example, a nonprofit organization might run an ad showing a starving child when it solicits donations. Helping others as a way to resolve one’s own negative moods is known as negative state relief. Recently we’ve seen a trend in advertising toward inspirational stories that manipulate our emotions like a roller- coaster: Think about the commercials Budweiser likes to run about a puppy who befriends a horse, gets lost, finds his way home, etc. This practice even has a name: sadvertising.27

A study shows that this emotional element is especially potent for decisions that involve outcomes the person will experience shortly as opposed to those that involve a longer time frame.28 Another study attests to the interplay between our emotions and how we access information in our minds that allows us to make smarter decisions. These researchers reported evidence for what they call an emotional oracle effect: People who trusted their feelings were able to predict future events better than those who did not; this occurred for a range of situations including the presidential election, the winner of American Idol, movie box office success, and the stock market. The likely reason is that those with more confidence were better able to access information they had learned that could help them make an informed forecast.29

Mood congruency We’ve already seen that cognitive dissonance occurs when our various feelings, beliefs, or behaviors don’t line up, and we may be motivated to alter one or more of these to restore consistency. We’ll talk more about that in our discussion of attitudes in Chapter 8.

Mood congruency refers to the idea that our judgments tend to be shaped by our moods. For example, consumers judge the same products more positively when they are in a positive as opposed to a negative mood. This is why advertisers attempt to place their ads after humorous TV programming or create uplifting ad messages that put viewers in a good mood. Similarly, retailers work hard to make shoppers happy by playing “up” back- ground music and encouraging staff to be friendly. Then of course there’s the traditional “three-martini” business lunch…

Positive Affect As part of its global “Open Happiness” campaign, Coca-Cola set up a vending machine at the National University of Singapore that trades free coke beverages for hugs. The machine, which is outfitted in Coca-Cola’s signature colors and fonts, reads, “hug me” in large letters on the front.30

Our feelings also can serve as a source of information when we weigh the pros and cons of a decision. Put simply, the fact that the prospect of owning a specific brand will make a person feel good can give it a competitive advantage—even if the brand is similar on a functional level to other competing brands. That helps to explain why many of us will willingly pay a premium for a product that on the surface seems to do the same thing as a less expensive alternative—whether in the case of the hottest new Apple iPhone, a Justice shirt, or even a pricey university. A passionate commitment to one brand has famously been termed a lovemark by the head of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency.

happiness Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions. What makes us happy? Although many of us believe owning more shiny material goods is the key to happiness, research says otherwise. Several studies have reported that a greater emphasis on acquiring things actually links to lower levels of happiness! Indeed some

182 SecTiOn 2 Internal Influences on Consumer Behavior

cb AS i See iT Michel Tuan Pham, Columbia University

their willingness to trade-off brand reputation for lower prices). The metaphor typically advanced is that of a consumer using Consumer Reports® to make decisions.

Anyone who has observed consumers operate in the real world knows that the above-described model offers a poor description of many consumption decisions. In particular, this computer-like model doesn’t capture the important role that feelings and emotions play in consumers’ decisions and behavior. Think of the pride and contentment of a mother buying new shoes for her growing toddler, the joy of a young child learning that she is going to Disneyland, the excitement of a teenager planning his next birthday party, or the anger of a customer who feels cheated by a company. How does one capture that?

For the past 25 years, I have studied how feelings and emotions influence consumers’ decisions and behavior. My findings show that feelings and emotions indeed do matter. Part of the reason why they matter is that contrary to the assumed incompatibility between emotion and rationality, consumers typically consider their feelings and emotions to be informative. On this point, I think that they are generally right. If a product doesn’t “feel right,” one should probably stay away from it,

even if it seems like a good deal; and if a product “feels right,” one is likely to be happy with it in the long run— something that I have called emotional rationality.

Another reason why feelings and emotions matter is that a lot of the seemingly logical arguments that consumers use to explain their decisions are in fact post hoc rationalizations of their immediate feelings toward the products that they evaluate. Consumers may reason that they like a new BMW because it has good mileage or because their current car is getting old, whereas in fact these rationales only came to their minds because they were immediately attracted by the car’s pleasing aesthetic. First emotional impressions thus matter a lot in business.

My research further shows that feelings and emotions are not just good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. Their specific content makes a big difference. Pride isn’t the same as excitement; anxiety isn’t the same as sadness; and joy isn’t the same as relaxation. Each of these distinct emotions moves consumers in different directions. A big challenge for marketers will be to understand how to induce the “right” emotions among consumers, which is something that I am currently working on in my latest research.

Theories of how consumers make choices and decisions have historically emphasized processes that are cognitive and seemingly “rational.” Consumers, we are told, function a bit like computers: They search and receive product-related information from the environment (e.g., the electrical consumption of a dishwasher), combine this information with other information stored in their memory (e.g., the reputation of a particular brand), and integrate the whole into an overall decision using rules that reflect what consumers care about (e.g.,

recent evidence suggests we are “wired” to engage in material accumulation, which is what researchers term the instinct to earn more than we can possibly consume, even when this imbalance makes us unhappy. In the first phase of a study to explore this idea, respondents were asked to listen to obnoxious white noise on a headset. They were told they could earn pieces of Dove chocolate when they listened to the white noise a certain number of times. They also were asked to estimate how may pieces of chocolate they could eat in a 5-minute period after this phase. Respondents on average endured enough white noise to earn far more chocolates then even they predicted they could eat. In other words, they endured negative experiences to earn more than they knew they could pos- sibly consume.31

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Other work suggests that experiences beat out material acquisitions. In one study respondents were asked to think of either a material purchase (defined as a purchase made with the primary intention of acquiring a material possession) or an experiential purchase (defined as a purchase made with the primary intention of acquiring a life experience). Even though the two scenarios were matched for the price paid, respondents were happier when they thought of experiential purchases.32 In addition, the drivers of happiness also seem to vary throughout the life span. Younger people are more likely to associate happi- ness with excitement, whereas older people are more likely to associate this state with feel- ings of calm and peacefulness.33

negative Affect Although we may assume that marketers want to make us happy all the time, that’s hardly the case. Marketing messages can make us sad, angry or even depressed—and sometimes that’s done on purpose!

Disgust Many researchers believe that the primitive emotion of disgust evolved to protect us from contamination; we learned over the years to avoid putrid meat and other foul substances linked to pathogens. As a result, even the slight odor of something nasty elicits a univer- sal reaction—the wrinkling of the nose, curling of the upper lips, and protrusion of the tongue. Wrinkling the nose has been shown to prevent pathogens from entering through the nasal cavity, and sticking out the tongue aids in the expulsion of tainted food and is a common precursor to vomiting.

OK, now that you’re sufficiently grossed out, what (you may ask in disgust) does this have to do with marketing and persuasion? Well, disgust also exerts a powerful effect on our judgments. People who experience this emotion become harsher in their judgments of moral offenses and offenders. In one experiment, people who sat in a foul-smelling room or at a desk cluttered with dirty food containers judged acts such as lying on a résumé or keeping a wallet found on the street as more immoral than individuals who were asked to make the same judgments in a clean environment. In another study, survey respon- dents who were randomly asked to complete the items while they stood in front of a hand sanitizer gave more conservative responses than those who stood in another part of the hallway.35

Happiness is an extreme state of well-being accompanied by positive emotions. Source: Phil Date/Shutterstock.

The next time you’re feel- ing down and you think about cheering yourself by checking your Face- book page, think again:

researchers report that the longer people stay on Facebook, the worse they feel. Apparently this activity makes you feel like you’re wast- ing your life; people say that compared to browsing the internet (or perhaps, studying) Facebook checking is less meaningful or useful. This judgment in turns leads to bad feelings.34

The Tangled Web

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Advertisers used to avoid using negative imagery so they wouldn’t turn people off, but many now realize that it actually can be productive to elicit extreme feelings such as disgust to get their message across:

●● To discourage people from consuming sugary drinks, The New York Department of Health showed a man imbibing a soft drink—as he does the beverage turns into gobs of fat.

●● Febreze ran a TV commercial where blindfolded people in a foul room believe it’s actually a nice location because the air freshener covers up the stench.

●● Lamisil is a medication for toenail fungus, so it’s not too hard to generate feelings of disgust. The company created a creature it called “Digger” that excavates its way under people nails—a safe bet it accomplished its objective.

envy Envy is a negative emotion associated with the desire to reduce the gap between oneself and someone who is superior on some dimension. Researchers distinguish between two types of envy: Benign envy occurs when we believe the other person actually deserves a coveted brand (like an iPhone). Under these circumstances the person may be willing to pay more to obtain the same item. Malicious envy occurs when the consumer believes the other person does not deserve his or her superior position. In this case the consumer may not desire the product the other person owns, but he or she may be willing to pay more for a different brand in the same category (like a Samsung Galaxy) to set them apart from the other person.36

Guilt Guilt is “an individual’s unpleasant emotional state associated with possible objections to his or her actions, inaction, circumstances, or intentions.”37 Marketers may try to invoke a feeling of guilt when they want consumers to engage in prosocial behaviors like giving to charities. These “guilt appeals” can be particularly effective when others are present because this approach activates a sense of social responsibility. However, extreme guilt appeals can backfire so often a more subtle approach is preferable.38